


Homecoming

by alephnull



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Book 3: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Canon Compliant, Introspection, Lost Years, M/M, POV Remus Lupin, Post-Sirius Black in Azkaban, Reunions, The Marauder's Map
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-08
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-15 01:48:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29926083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alephnull/pseuds/alephnull
Summary: Remus remembers a book he read a few years back about cyclical time. Some cultures believe time is cyclical, not linear, and Remus hadn’t really understood it back then, but he thinks he might do now. Time is cyclical, and this is a beginning or an end, space-time folded awkwardly in on itself, bending and warping to bring Sirius back to Remus.Rated T for language, but otherwise there's nothing really inappropriate in this.
Relationships: Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Comments: 4
Kudos: 16





	Homecoming

The Marauder's Map has been sitting in Remus’ desk drawer for several weeks. Remus hasn’t so much as touched it since he confiscated it, not really wanting to deal with all the memories associated with the parchment, but he’s just finished marking one stack of mind-numbingly boring papers and he remembers that the Map is right there.

Remus retrieves the Map, tapping it with his wand, and recites the words he hasn’t said in over a decade and a half.

“I solemnly swear that I am up to no good.”

Ink lines unfurl from the tip of Remus’ wand, tracing the lines of Hogwarts’ many doors and passageways. Countless dots move in rivers about the map, names overlapping and bumping into each other in the corridors. Remus smiles to himself, admiring the magic he spent so much of his later Hogwarts years crafting.

Remus’ eyes drift across the names, seeking one particular name out.

Harry Potter has grown so much since he was an infant. He looks more and more like his father every day, with the same messy black hair, round glasses, and dark skin, but the similarities to James end there, it seems. He has James’ face and Lily’s smile; he never grins in the lazy, cocky way James used to. He smiles shyly at people, reserved and kind like Lily. He’s polite and good-natured, never wanting to be the centre of attention; Remus can only regret that he wasn’t there to watch him grow up into this boy.

Harry’s dot is at Hagrid’s cabin right now, alongside Ron and Hermione. Remus is glad that James’ son has such good friends. Remus knows that he wouldn’t have been able to survive his own Hogwarts years without James and Peter; to watch Harry, Ron, and Hermione live out their own adventures at school is like watching the younger version of Remus.

Then Remus notices another dot in Hagrid’s cabin. He assumes he’s misread the name at first, glancing over it and about to chuckle at his own illiteracy when he looks at it again. He reads the name tag several times over, blinking rapidly, to make sure he couldn’t possibly be misreading this.

The Marauder’s Map doesn’t lie. It’s never been wrong before, and Remus spent hours upon hours in the library ensuring that there was no possible way to trick the Map, no possible way for things to glitch or act up. Ever since they made the Map, the Marauders have been certain of this fact.

Remus racks his head frantically for possible explanations, but he can’t find any. There’s no way the Map could lie. He’s already meticulously tested this map, and he knows, sureness in his very bones, that the Map can’t be wrong, not ever.

Peter Pettigrew is in Hagrid’s hut.

How— It’s not possible—

But it is.

A finger.

They only found a finger. They never found Peter’s body.

What if, what if, what if.

Of course, Remus has spent countless sleepless nights wondering _what if_ — _what if he was innocent, what if they were wrong, what if he still loves me, what if he never loved me at all_ —but for some reason, he had never considered _what if Peter is still alive_. Of course. The only proof that he was dead was just a finger.

Remus is so fucking _stupid_. How could he have just accepted that Peter was dead? No body, just a finger—of _course_ he was living thirteen years as a bloody rat.

Peter’s dot shoots off then, darting out of the hut. Remus doesn’t need to read the name to know what the other dot is, pursuing Peter.

Sirius Black.

Remus has never run faster in his life, werewolf joints be damned.

It’s funny. Remus has loved a lot of people. He loved his mother and his father; he loved James Potter and Peter Pettigrew; he loved Lily Evans; he loved Caradoc Dearborn, probably, a little bit, when he had that crush on him in Third Year and they became friends-slash-tentatively-boyfriends; he loved some of the few short-lived boyfriends he’s had since Sirius, as friends.

None of these loves feel like loving Sirius Black.

It feels like some decision was made before either of them were born, like some invisible string of fate was pulling, always pulling, Remus and Sirius towards each other. Ever since the day Remus met Sirius on the Hogwarts Express, well—that was it, wasn’t it? Remus was fucked. His fate was sealed, destiny determined and inescapable. They had altered the timeline forever. They could never be free of each other.

Remus has always been sceptical of Divination. It seems like a bunch of hocus-pocus, really, the idea that the stars could tell you the future, but when it comes to Sirius… It really seems something like destiny, something like predetermination, something inescapable and all-consuming. The cosmic fatality of it all, the crushing weight of the black hole at the centre of everything—Sirius, Sirius, Sirius. An ancient magic binding Remus’ destiny to Sirius’ destiny, fate doomed before they were born. What else could it be?

Remus shoots through the Hogwarts corridors, bursting out towards the Whomping Willow. He can’t see a dog or a rat anywhere; they must have already gone in.

The idea of soulmates has never seemed very plausible nor desirable to Remus. Isn’t it better to fall in love because you _want_ to, because you like this person of your own accord, not because some cosmic hand of fate has pre-determined your destiny? Remus would like choices, would like the liberty of loving by his own mind and not by the mind of some unknowable power, but he’s never had choices, has he?

Remus and Sirius, Sirius and Remus. It just makes sense. Wolf and dog, moon and star, water and fire, pull and push.

Remus has loved Sirius for a very long time now. At first, it felt like a blessing, like freedom, like joy. It felt more and more like a burden as the War waged on, and after the War, his love for Sirius was just a festering wound he had to attend to every now and again, an injury he had to make accommodations for. He’s never asked for this.

An unhealed wound, an opened scar. They’ll never be free of each other.

A love like a sickness, like a beast Remus has tried and tried and tried to tame or suffocate or maim, but it’s always the other way round, always Remus who gets tamed and suffocated and maimed by stupid sobbing deadly cosmic hopeless love.

Round and around and around.

Remus bursts into the Shrieking Shack, red sparks tearing through the air. He looks to Ron, leg broken on the floor, then to Hermione, staring at Remus, then to Harry, wand pointed at Sirius, and finally to Sirius, gaunt and bleeding at Harry’s feet.

“ _Expelliarmus!_ ” Remus shouts.

Harry and Hermione’s wands fly into Remus’ hand.

Sirius is barely recognisable. His skin is sallow, an inhuman colour, pulled over the bones of his skull. His eyes, which used to be grey, are dark now, shining wildly in the dimly-lit room, sunken into pronounced eye sockets. His hair is long and tangled, a great matted mess, no longer the sleek and beautiful locks Sirius had taken pride in before Azkaban. He looks dead.

Remus remembers a book he read a few years back about cyclical time. Some cultures believe time is cyclical, not linear, and Remus hadn’t really understood it back then, but he thinks he might do now. Time is cyclical, and this is a beginning or an end, space-time folded awkwardly in on itself, bending and warping to bring Sirius back to Remus.

It’s fate; it’s homecoming; it’s Sirius, Sirius, always Sirius. _Everything leads back to you._

“Where is he, Sirius?” Remus asks, voice taut.

Sirius looks back at Remus. Remus feels the world stop rotating about its axis.

Very slowly, Sirius raises a hand to point at Ron.

“But then…” Remus mutters, unable to break eye contact with Sirius. What is he saying? What does he mean? “…why hasn’t he shown himself before now? Unless—”

Remus’ eyes widen.

No.

It can’t be.

No, no, it’s all wrong.

A finger, just a finger. They never found his body.

Peter Pettigrew, alive.

Why would an innocent man spend thirteen years as a rat? If he was just afraid of Sirius, could he not have returned safely to the wizarding world after Sirius’ arrest? So many Death Eaters were arrested around that time; Peter wouldn’t have to fear them, not unless…

Not unless they’d be after him too, because _he_ was the one to… to tell Voldemort…

Remus’ stomach turns. He wants to throw up. Guiltily, he remembers how he actually threw up the first time; it hurts less the second time round, because at least Sirius is innocent… Remus should feel worse, knowing that an innocent man spent twelve years in Azkaban, but he only feels a rush of relief to have Sirius back, that Sirius was always his to begin with.

It makes so much sense. Remus and Sirius.

“—unless _he_ was the one… unless you switched… without telling me?”

Sirius nods, expression unreadable.

“Professor Lupin, what’s going—?” Harry starts, but before he can finish, Remus lowers his wand.

In one movement, Remus steps forwards, seizes Sirius by the hand, pulls him to his feet, and embraces Sirius.

Sirius’ ribs are countable beneath Remus’ fingers, rags filthy and stinking of Merlin-knows-what. He’s cold and unsteady on his feet, like a strong handshake would snap him in two, so Remus holds Sirius tightly as though he’s holding the other man together. Sirius’ head rests on Remus’ shoulder right where it fits, right where it’s rested so many days and nights a lifetime ago. Remus inhales. Sirius smells fucking awful, if he’s honest, but there’s some underlying scent of wet dog Sirius always smelled of before, and Remus chokes on air.

Sirius is back. Or he never left.


End file.
